“Thank you,” I said. “For everything.”
“You don’t ever need to thank me, Mr. Morgan. You pull this off and the country will owe you an even greater debt of gratitude.”
She shut herself in the SUV. The Marine nearest the bakery doors opened them and Erin’s convoy streamed out. The man by the doors jumped in the last vehicle, which sped away on the tail of the others.
“We’re coming with you,” Feo said, when they were out of sight.
I walked over to the huge Russian.
“No. This is where we say goodbye. Get the medical care you need. Lay low till Alekseyev is Stateside and his power over Russian Intelligence is well and truly ended.”
“I—” Feo began, but I cut him off.
“You’ve done enough, Feodor Arapov. More than enough. Look after him, Dinara.”
“I will, Jack.”
“Thank you for saving us,” Feo said. “Both of you.”
“Alekseyev would have killed us once he had what he wanted,” Dinara added. “We owe you our lives.”
I am never comfortable receiving thanks for what I’ve done. I always hope if I wasn’t around, someone else would be standing in my place.
“We look out for each other,” I replied. “That’s what we do.”
“You be careful,” Dinara said. “Both of you.”
I nodded and followed West into the Transporter.
“You ready?” he asked as he started the engine.
“Let’s do this,” I replied, and we rolled out.
Chapter 103
We needed to head south-west to the airfield. The first couple miles passed without incident. West and I were silent, on edge, and alert. We had forty miles to go, and I hoped we’d be as lucky for the remainder of our journey.
We weren’t. As we turned onto Volgogradskiy Avenue, a busy dual carriageway lined with offices and shops, we saw the first roadblock.
There were long lines waiting to make their way through two checkpoints. There were another two on the opposite side of the street, and traffic was also backed up in that direction. The uniformed cops were thorough, checking identity papers and searching each vehicle. We had no doubt they were looking for us.
“Take the alleyway,” I suggested, pointing to the narrow street to our right, which cut between two office blocks. I couldn’t see where it went, but it had to be better than certain capture.
West nodded. Once he had crawled forward enough to clear the metal barriers either side of the mouth of the alleyway, he made the turn. We drove between the two office buildings and reached a T-junction. West went right, which took us toward 11-Ya Tekstilshchikov Street.
“We’ll go one block further and try to cut south from there,” West said.
He made a right turn onto 11-Ya Tekstilshchikov Street, and we immediately saw a problem ahead. Moscow Police were setting up another checkpoint at the intersection with Lyublinskaya Street. The noose was tightening.
“Bluff, fight, or run?” West said. “Those are our only three options.”
“I don’t see us bluffing our way out. Not with a bound and gagged guy in the back,” I said.
“Me neither.”
“And I don’t like the odds of fighting Moscow’s finest for forty miles.”
“Neither do I,” he responded. “So that leaves run.”
“Yeah,” I said, buckling my seat belt.
I bent into the footwell and picked up Feo’s rifle. “Maybe with a little fighting.”
“Okay then,” West replied, gripping the steering wheel tighter.
Establishing the roadblock had caused traffic to build up in both directions, which created a gap on the other carriageway as vehicles were held back while the cops got ready to start their checks.
“Hold on,” West said, as he swerved across the outside lane and cut over the median onto the empty stretch of road on the other side.
He stepped on the gas and the van roared forward. The cops at the checkpoint were startled and slow to react. They didn’t manage to get their weapons drawn before we were on them. They had to dive clear as West crashed through the gap between two of the vehicles. The Transporter hardly slowed, but the buckled cop vehicles spun wildly as we raced by.
West hopped the median and bounced onto the right side of the road, eating up a clear stretch as we gathered speed.
I heard sirens behind us and glanced in the wing mirror to see the undamaged police vehicles screech clear of the checkpoint and start to chase us.
“Forty miles, you say?” West asked as we shot straight across a roundabout, bouncing over the kerbs and chewing up grass.
“Yeah,” I replied.
He frowned. “Long way.”
He swung the wheel and took us right onto Saratovskaya Street, but to my dismay I saw this single-lane road, which cut through a popular retail district, was completely closed. Police vehicles blocked access in both directions. They were obviously trying to divert traffic to the main checkpoints.
I saw four cops draw their pistols and crouch behind the hoods. Soon we would be all over the radio and every cop in Moscow would be looking for us. It looked as though there was no escape.
Chapter 104
West mounted the sidewalk and accelerated. There were no pedestrians, which meant we had a clear run, but fortune can cut both ways. The cops were able to shoot freely. The van took heavy fire as we raced to the barricade. West caught the rear end of one of the vehicles, parked to block the sidewalk, and there was an almighty crash and crunch of metal as the Transporter’s weight and momentum carried it past the barricade. Bullets pierced the chassis, thudding into the side panel, and shattered the square windows at the back of the van.
West and I were unscathed but we still had a long way to go. I heard sirens, lots of them, and glanced in the wing mirror to see a swarm of police vehicles buzz into the mouth of the street.
West jumped the kerb back onto the road and we raced toward the next intersection with a growing convoy of police vehicles on our tail.
There was a dip in the road and the van took off as we went down the slope, heading for the intersection. We saw police vehicles directly ahead. West pointed to a side road where there were more liveried vehicles speeding toward us.
“They’re cutting us off,” he said.
“We need Erin Sebold’s miracle,” I replied.
“If she’s pulled it off,” he countered.
“We’ve got nothing to lose.”
He nodded and swung the wheel left. The Transporter screeched round the corner onto Saratovsky Proezd, a broad road lined with large shops.
“Damn it,” West said, and I saw the reason for his dismay.
Another roadblock, this one properly prepared. Five police vehicles were positioned to form a barrier across the street and sidewalk. They were arranged so the hood of each was behind the tail of its neighbor, making it harder to batter the rear end out of the way. The Russian cops were upping their game. Uniformed officers were positioned behind the center of each vehicle, aiming their rifles over the roofs. These men were more heavily armed than our previous opponents and unleashed a barrage of bullets as we approached.
The Transporter’s windscreen shattered, turning the world a frosty white.
“Kick it out,” West yelled.
I leant back in my seat and stamped the broken glass out of the way. It tumbled over the hood and slid onto the street. I could feel the wind on my face, and the sound of semi-automatic gunfire was even louder now we were exposed to the world.
We were about fifty feet away from the barricade and West was showing no sign of slowing. Instead, he bumped onto the sidewalk and, to my amazement, drove the van into the window of a store on the corner.